by Laetitia Volga
PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to rise slightly and European stock markets were mixed at midday on Friday, as investors hesitated to take positions in the final session before Christmas amid questions about central bank monetary policy.
Futures contracts signal a rise of 0.19% for the Dow Jones, 0.2% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 and 0.26% for the Nasdaq.
In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.2% to 6,504.93 around 12:20 GMT. In Frankfurt, the Dax rises 0.23% and in London the FTSE rises 0.07%.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index is up 0.07%, the Eurozone EuroStoxx 50 is down 0.11% and the Stoxx 600 is up 0.15%.
Indices ended lower on Thursday as signs of resilience in the US economy fueled fears that the Federal Reserve (Fed) would continue its monetary tightening in the face of inflation longer than expected, risking a recession.
The trend may be influenced by monthly household income and consumption figures due at 13:30 GMT, which includes the Federal Reserve’s most-watched “core PCE” price index.
The Reuters consensus gives a deceleration to 4.7% over a year after 5% in October.
“There is a sense of caution after Thursday’s decline. Markets are in a wait-and-see mode ahead of key inflation data that will provide some clues as to the Fed’s next move,” said Victoria Scholar, chief investment officer at Interactive Investor. .
“It looks like a disappointing December will cap off a disappointing year for stocks unless there is a last-minute bounce, which seems unlikely at this point,” she added.
The MSCI World index has lost about 20% since the start of the year.
RATE
The prospect of continued monetary policy tightening by the Fed and the European Central Bank continues to support government bond yields.
That for ten-year government bonds rose four basis points to 3.706%.
In the European bond market, the ten-year German has hit a two-month high of 2.397%.
CHANGES
The dollar was down 0.15% against a benchmark basket after two sessions in the red, and the euro was up by the same margin at 1.0618.
OIL
The oil market is trending higher with the prospect of lower Russian crude exports following Western sanctions.
Brent rose 2.04% to $82.63 a barrel. barrel and US light oil (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) 2.34% to $79.3.
(Laetitia Volga; Editing by Kate Entringer)
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